AhPek Biker - Old Dog Rides Again: Malacca : Peranakan Bike

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Malacca : Peranakan Bike-Packers

13th-15th November 2012 : Day 2 : Ride Around Malacca Town

Bikers at A' Famosa

Small Group Ride (This blog covers Day 2 of 3)

Bike Ride Around Malacca Town

Cycling Distance Day 2 : Approx. 50.00 km. for day & night (per MapMyRide App)
Ride Start Time : 8:00 am till night
Time Taken : Who cares! It was a sight-seeing joy & eats ride

PRELUDE

We had bike-packed down from Kuala Lumpur to Malacca the previous day (see Malacca : Peranakaan Bike-Packers Day 1). It was a tiring ride but I was glad that we did that, having that feeling of achievement now.

Dawn at Kota Laksamana

Good Morning!
Unusually of me, I woke up quite early and went down to the lower floor of the duplex apartment that we were staying in. I was greeted by a beautiful dawn - it will be a great day to ride!

We were staying at one of the Chin Apartments. It's a maisonette unit at the first floor of a block. There's a living/dining room, kitchen, bathroom & 1 bedroom at the 1st floor with a balcony. At the second floor there are 3 bedrooms. We all stayed at the second floor.

It's not very large, but the living room was big enough for us to park our 4 bicycles and still leave ample space.
We decided not to fold up our bikes but that meant we had to carry them up 1-1/2 flights of stairs.
Haha! We exercise our legs riding AND now we exercise our arms too!

Chin Apartment is located at Section 3, Kota Laksamana within easy cycling distance to Malacca Town (about 15-20 minutes).
Rates are : RM40-00 per pax/room or RM35 per pax for twin sharing.

THE RIDE
The ride blog will be in three post :
Day 1. Trip Down from Bandar Tasik Selatan, Kuala Lumpur to Laksamana, Melaka
Day 2. Biking Around Malacca
Day 3. Trip Back from Laksamana, Melaka to Sentral, Kuala Lumpur

DAY 2: 14th November 1012 - RIDING AROUND MALACCA TOWN

Peranakaan Bike-packers : Day 2 Ride Route Malacca Town Ride (click for Map Link)

Today's iternary :
1. Go buy bus ticket for Siew Yung as she will be leaving for KL today.
2. Ride around Malacca Riverside.
3. Lunch at Aunty Lee Nyonya Restaurant, Ujung Pasir.
4. Visit Portuguese Settlement.
5. Tea At Nadeje Cake House.
6. Send Siew Yung Off.
7. Night Ride to Malacca River, A' Famosa, Jonker's Walk

Okay, first thing first again, must not forget about the two Brompton ladies, Siew Yung & Rita. We rode over to meet them and then it was off for makan (Malay for eats)!

We went down Tangkera again. This time round I managed to get a better photo of the Tengkera Mosque's Minaret. It's architecture seems closer to Indian mosques.

Breakfast was at the Tengkera Food Court, quite close to the Mosque.

Kookkeong had broth. Rita eyeing that and probably thinking "Hmm... looks good, I will go for that too."

I had prawn mee soup from this stall. I was discussing on how to make good prawn mee with this vendor.
He gave me that look which meant "Young man, don't try to teach my grandmother how to suck eggs."

Siew Yung?
Siew Yung had her Brompton for breakfast!
Okay, jokes aside, she did eat but was keeping a watchful eye over her new bike.

We left the food court, heading towards the Malacca Sentral Bus Terminal. Siew Yung will be going back to Kuala Lumpur today, and she needs to get the bus tickets.
Along the way we, cycled pass by one of those flowery Malacca beca (trishaw).

Also passed by this Satay Celup stall. It was closed as they usually open for dinner.

Quite soon, we reached the Malacca Sentral.
It's huge mono-pole signboard states that it is a terminal, market and bazaar.

Here's the four of us waiting for Siew Yung while she went to buy her tickets, sitting in the style of the Kapitan Cina's of old - arms akimbo with clenched fists on the thighs of our spread legs.
It was a close emulation, but we shouldn't have smiled as those Kapitans were rather serious fellows who ruled the life and business of historical Malacca Chinatown with a firm hand.

Having done the needed, we were ready to leave for our next destination - the Malacca Riverside.

On the way, we passed by the Aeon Jusco shopping complex.

Some colorful high-rise apartments.

Malacca River, the bikers have arrived!
The above is one of the many unique bridges spanning over the river. This one is named after the legendary Malacca warrior Hang Tuah.

Malacca Riverside is such a beautiful place to visit. The river is very clean, devoid of those odd flotsam, jetsam and what-nots that blight many river.
On both sides are nicely paved and landscaped walkways. Certain areas even have boardwalks.

River Cruise Boat along the Malacca River

One can take a nice walk along the riverside, or even take a river cruise.

OR BETTER STILL, cycle along the riverside just like we did.

Along one side of the river, there were many colorful wall murals that added life to the place.

Some depicted Malaysian tribal culture.

Others showed the history of Malacca.

And yet others gave us a chance to explore our artistic side, heh... heh...

And also our dramatic side.

Some distance away we could see the spires of the St. Francis Xavier Church.
St. Francis Xavier was a Christian Brother who traveled to Malacca with the Portuguese and then onwards to Japan.

Off the riverside are nice, cute little alleyways.
Malacca is a hodgepodge of Malay, Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch & English, all of whom have colored it's past.

Fookkeong had an important task to carry out, so we had to leave the beauty and serenity of the riverside behind us and head on.
It was getting closer to noon, and we were lucky that we were cycling as the traffic was getting horrendous.

Shopfront with hand-prints, wonder what they are selling, gloves?

Though in a rush, I managed to take in the uniqueness of Malacca old town area.

Nice and colorful cheong-sams also caught my eye.

We stopped by this stall selling Chinese medicinal herbal tea, to quench or thirst.
The medicinal quality of the tea sold here should do us good...

... so should the lottery tickets that the vendor was also selling. I bought a few.
The top prize of this lottery goes to above RM10 million.
I hope that I strike, but I am not greedy - something just enough for me to get one of those Bromptons.

And here's Kookkeong's important task -
A brotherly duty to visit a sister.
She operates a shop selling bags. Special discount for Kookkeong's cyclist friends! (of course Kookkeong must come along to vouch, heh heh!)

Next to her shop, across a side-lane is the Tai Chong Ice Cream Shop.

We sat ourselves down and had Rojak, Cendol.....

..... and whale-mouthfuls of ice-cream sundaes!

The nearby area was also interesting - the above is an old style barber shop with an old balding barber! But those barber chairs and the barbers will soon be a thing of the past, as new hair styling saloons with foreign trained cutters are the in-thing.

A spiral staircase standing out in a dark side alley.

We have to move along now, as we have to ride over to Ujung Pasir for lunch.
Aren't we glad we are cycling when we meet traffic jams like this.

Along the way, I made short stops to take photos, like this one of the Christ Church, which is of Dutch design from the era of the Dutch rule of Malacca.
"Hey, AhPek! We have to move along, we don't want to be late for our lunch, reservations have been made for 12:30 pm at Aunty Lee. We will be riding pass here again later." my co-riders remarked. So no more photo stops then.

But I still managed to take some shorts while cycling.
This one is of a "DUCK" amphibious boat, it can move on land and also be a boat.
These vehicles hails from the World War II period, and were actually landing assault vehicles but are now used as a tour bus/boat.

We managed to reach Aunty Lee Nyonya Restaurant on time.
Siew Yung had made reservations for an earlier time as this place do get pretty packed after that.

Among the good food we had, was this delicious otak-otak. Looks good & tastes good too!

Assam curry fish - the fish was very fresh and the curry superb!

And Ayam Pongteh (stewed chicken), a local Malacca favorite which lived up to its reputation.

To round up the meal, for desserts, it was Malacca Cendul.
We also had cincaluk omelet & stir-fried kankung belacan. I even got to meet the auntie herself (read more at YummY! - Nyonya Temptations @ Aunty Lee)

As nice as Aunty Lee was, we had to leave.
And headed for the Portuguese Settlement. This is a settlement of the descendants of the Portuguese who colonized Malacca centuries back.

But I was sad to see that the place have changed much from the memories I had of it when I last came here almost a decade ago.
It is now a much more modern place, so modern that it does not have any feel of a settlement anymore. The only thing giving that feel were the houses along the road leading in.

Gone are the wharves with the fishing boats. Instead in their place is modern walkway with an adjacent large car-park.

Seems like the settlers livelihood is not in fishing anymore, but in the pure commercialism of a tourism industry.

How I lament this lost of identity. But I guess they have to adjust to the practical present day lifestyle as the younger generations seek better harvest than that offered by the sea.

There's even a spanking new hotel, the Lisbon Hotel.

And a museum with a souvenir shop.

We opted to take a photo at this archway that closest resemble something Portuguese, but please excuse those advertisement boards.

Time to leave the settlement and my laments behind, and head for our next stop - St. Paul's Hill via Kampung Atap. The houses here seems more interesting.

Reaching the foot of St. John's Hill, Andrew gives the thumbs up!

The ride up was along a nice, shady slope.

It was a hot day and at the top of the road, one will have to climb further on foot to the fort.
Rita and Kookkeong being more adventurous (or should I say more lively) went up the hill.
The rest of us lazy lots, just sat and rested.

At the fort, Rita was having some fun with some big guns... huge guns really!

Leaving the hill, we headed towards Plaza Mahkota as Siew Yung has a last thing to show us before she goes back to Kuala Lumpur.

And that place was Nadeje - a pastry shop selling wonderful crepe cakes and others.

Crepe cakes are layered cakes, with cream in between the layers.
Among others we had the Strawberry Crepe cakes. As one takes in the cake, the cream slowly oozes out. YummY!

Rita, the Pink Lady, was naturally attracted towards....
... what else but PINK!
She found it in this refreshing drink called Calpis Pink Guava.
(for more on the cake house read YummY! - Crepes Layered Cakes @ Nadeje Malacca)

Now we are back at the girls' hotel, for Siew Yung to collect her luggage.
Now there are SIX of us, sitting there at the hotel front, taking a memorable shot.

All of us rode to Sentral Melaka to send Siew Yung off.
Goodbye Siew Yung...
... Goodbye Guys!

Having said our goodbyes, we rode back to our respcective hotel and apartments for a badly needed rest before we head out again at night.
And now there are FIVE of us.
We will miss our biking buddy!

8:00 pm - we went to the Kota Laksamana Coffee shop again. What can I say, they have lots of stall selling many different food.
And it's nearby.

This time round, we had lor-mee. It tasted okay only.

Char Keow Teow..... Looks GOOD!
And also Singapore Fried Prawn Mee, sorry no pix on this one as I walloped it too fast and forgot to snap one.

After that, we went on a night ride of Malacca town, wanting to see how it is at night.
Here we are at Jonkers Walk, we were there at 9pm and surprisingly the place was quite quiet. Didn't see the crowds.

At Jonkers Walk we visited the Taman Warisan Dunia, it's a small park dedicated to a local who won the Mr. Universe Asia body building competition.

Andrew gangnam danced here!

While Kookkeong decided to release his pent up strength by taking the bull by its horns.

We met some colorfully lighted trishaws.

And here's the AhPek Biker the Trishaw Biker, considering a new career in line with cycling.

Rode by a restored Portuguese Man-of-War warship. These were use to invade Malacca centuries back.

And met some lady bikers from the local university at the Christ Church area. We exchanged pleasantries cordially.

Andrew led us in a gangnaming stint here too.

As it was dark at the parks, we ingeniously shone our bike lights onto a plane to take this group photo. Posing with serious looks and arms folded, do we remind you of someone? - Hint: he's into biking and camping too.

Rita did a pole-dancing stint on a fire-truck.
We bikers know how to have fun too!

We ended our night tour with a visit to the Malacca Riverside. It is even more romantic during this hour (Mental note to myself : bring wife here next time.)

The Casa Del Rio looking very grand in the evening.

11:00pm - We finished off our day back at the Laksamana Coffee Shop. Now there is a singing stage show and the place was packed as there was also a lucky draw on.
Many of the prizes were large umbrellas. Luckily we did not win that, as it would have been odd, very odd to carry one of those huge ones while cycling, Hahaha!

We have a long ride back tomorrow, so it was back to sleep then.
Good Night...

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